About our sold property price data for England & Wales

Overview of data from Land Registry

This article sets out exactly what data we receive from the Land Registry (HMLR). We cover how the information is compiled and extracted, the accuracy of the data and what to do about errors which may exist in Land Registry records.

Background

Having received requests from interested parties such as Nethouseprices for a useable, affordable digest of all the English and Welsh residential house sales registered every month, the Land Registry built an extraction system to deliver bulk data to these customers reporting all the house prices achieved in England and Wales.

Due to the volume of these records, there is a delay in receiving the data and as a "rule of thumb" these tend to be received a few days before the end of the subsequent month. For example January registrations would be available at the end of February, and February registrations would be received at the end of March. As soon as the data is received we aim to have this live on the website within 1 day, however, unfortunately there may be further delays which are out of our control.

Scope of the Information

The information we receive is:

"Full Market Value Residential" transactions - this means that it includes every house sold at an agreed price between a private buyer and seller.

"Not Sold at full market value" transactions - this includes properties that are sold as Repossessions, Buy to Lets (where they can be identified by a Mortgage) and transfers to Non-Private Individuals

Processing of House Sale Transactions

Once a property transaction has been concluded, the conveyancer (Solicitor) sends an application for registration to the Land Registry. This is an application to have the transaction registered in the Land Register which is the perpetual record showing who owns what.

Because of historical factors and the large number of conveyancers submitting varying types of transactions for registration, much of the entry onto the land register is done manually.

As the application progresses through the registration process further details are added and corrections and amendments are made. A straightforward application to register the sale of a fairly new property can be completed in a matter of days. On the other hand a complicated transaction, involving many parties or "difficult" transactions where much supporting documentation must be found, supplied and checked may take several years!

Regardless of the time taken, once the application is completed, checked and signed off as being correct it is entered into the register on that day.

Land registry may correct any errors identified at any time. This corrected information is then released to us every month.

This means that we have a 100% correct snapshot of all registrations as they are recorded at the "last updated" date shown with every piece of Land Registry data on this site. It is possible that this may not reflect every single detail that is recorded with Land Registry (because a change may have been made in the meantime).

Accuracy of information

The information is 100% accurate as detailed above. It is an accurate reflection of the state of the Land Registry data at the time it was extracted and that date is clearly identified on every page of the site where Land Registry information is displayed.

The information we use is the only type of information supplied, by the Land Registry, so Nethouseprices has exactly the same data supplied as every other licensee.

What does the Land Register Show Now?

The only way to get Land Registry information as it is today is to do a search on the land register today. That is exactly what we would recommend if you need to know exactly what is recorded for a particular property. It is possible that an error is still uncorrected after years. But an inaccuracy on our site might have been corrected and you would see the correct information when you searched the land register. You will certainly see the information exactly as it is recorded.

There are two advantages we offer - immediacy and cost. To search the land register you can go and do it in person, use the Land Register Online service or pay someone to do a search for you. They may well use Land Register Online and then add on a charge for their time and overheads. The cost for finding a single record using Land Register Online is £2 and you have to familiarise yourself with the system. We do recommend Land Register Online if you want to know the exact state of the register today.

To use an online or other search agent to search on your behalf will usually cost anything from £10 upwards.

Compare this with Nethouseprices who offer free access and include easy searching and grouping, allowing you to search for properties via street, town and postcode. In fact we know that some of our members use our house price service to check that details are correct for no cost and then take action to check if any errors they find here are still present on the register.

Correcting Errors

It is possible that the information we have displayed, which you believe to be inaccurate, has already been corrected on the Land Register.

To check if information on the Land Register is correct, you should conduct a search, or have one conducted on your behalf. This is then a transaction between you and the Land Registry and they will answer questions and investigate errors you point out to them. The easiest way of doing this is at http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/ and help about the service can be found at http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/public/guides.

If you search there and the records reflect an error, then you need to get in touch with them and ask them to resolve this. There is a convenient feedback link at http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/contact-us.

Conclusion

Nethouseprices offers a quick convenient and cost effective way to search details extracted from the Land Register. These details are an accurate reflection of the record at the time of extraction and corrections are updated monthly. The details we are supplied with do not differ in this respect from any other customer.

Errors recorded in the Land Register can only be identified by searching the Land Register. Any errors identified can then be rectified by direct contact with the Land Registry. This will change the information we display when we receive our next monthly update.

The information we receive is sorted, has additional information added and is loaded to a state of the art database system where it can be accessed easily by the custom website we have designed to present the information in a usable and informative format.

When is the sold house price data updated?

Our house price information is updated once a month for each of the Registers we cover. This is carried out as soon as the data is released to us by the Land Registry.

Due to the volume of sales transactions, there is a delay in receiving the data. House sales registered in a month will usually be available on Nethouseprices the last week of the following month. For example all sales registered in July will be available in the last week of August.

Can I find commercial sales here?

A limited amount of commercial transactions are included in our data, when they are identified as not sold at full market value.

Unfortunately a complete list of commercial transactions are not part of the data set we license from the Land Registry. However, if we are given the opportunity of licencing this information, it will be available free of charge on the website as soon as possible.

Does the sold house price include Stamp Duty?

Cost of lease extensions

Unfortunately this information, while it may be available in the Land Register, is not part of the sold house price data set delivered to us as part of our licence agreement, and as such cannot be included in our information provided to you.

Why have a properties details have changed?

The Land Registry do from time to time change details on their records if they have been challenged and will then send us the revised records in our monthly updates. This will explain why a property amount or date may have changed.

What is Acceptable use of Land Registry data?

The end user licence displayed with every piece of Land Registry data explains this and if you are in any doubt as to whether your use of the information is appropriate you should write to them at the address shown in that licence.

Fortunately Land Registry have responded to our request for clarification of what might be acceptable and we have had a very helpful response.

The use must be strictly non-commercial and you may not amass data of a street, area or other category of the data and then publish it. So you can't build a website www.seewhatfootballerspaidfortheirhomes.net whether you sell advertising space or not.

The quoting of one or two prices is acceptable but more than a handful will be too many.

These guidelines apply to private use in a personal environment like meeting friends at the pub, or in a forum on the internet which requires registration and could be considered a gathering of friends. It is less likely to apply to a business forum.

For private use you may do whatever you like with the data as set out in the licence but you must not disclose it, or share it with anyone.

We are obliged by the terms of our licence to report any suspected misuse of the data to the Land Registry and to allow them full access to all our records at any time. You should be aware that any investigation and civil or criminal prosecution with regard to breach of the end-user licence will be carried out by the Crown, not Nethouseprices, and that we will give them our full cooperation.

IF YOU ARE IN ANY DOUBT ABOUT WHETHER YOUR PROPOSED USE OF THE INFORMATION IS WITHIN THE TERMS OF THE LICENCE - DO NOT USE IT, CONTACT LAND REGISTRY FOR PERMISSION

Do you show the asking price?

Is it legal to offer this property price information?

The property price information is in the public domain and we have a licence agreement with the Land Registry which gives us specific permission to display the information on our website.

The information has been available to any member of the public for centuries (it is in the public domain, although crown copyright). Search agents and other information retrieval services as well as the executive agencies themselves will provide any of the Land Register data we use - subject to payment of a fee.

We have just made it easier and free to access house price information held in the land registers.

I cannot find a house I know has been sold?

There are many possible reasons for this.

The sale has not been registered yet. This can on occasion take years.

The address may not be what you think it is. For example, the property may be on a corner and be known to you as 1, Crescent Close, yet its actual postal address may be different and be known and registered as 1, Cole Road.

You cannot find a record that exists. Try searching just the full postcode, leaving all the other fields blank, if this does not work, try truncating (halving) the postcode for example SO14 as opposed to SO14 3DB. If you still are having no luck please inform us of the full postal address and we will find out for you by contacting the Land Registry. Once the Land Registry have been contacted, they will ammend their records if needed and we will be given an update in the following month's data.

It is not a pure residential transaction. It may be a commercial transaction or have a commercial element to the sale. For example a house may have a large field attached and consequently may not be regarded as purely residential by the Land Registry. These sales will be excluded from our data and licence agreement.

It may not have been sold for 'Open Market Value.' This is the best possible price that could be achieved in the market place between a willing buyer and seller. A council property sold at a discount or a part - sale of a property as a result of a divorce or similar circumstances would not be included in our licence agreement.

Have you tried searching all years?

It may not have been sold despite what you have been told.

There may be a Land Registry error, which we will look into on your behalf if you provide us with the full postal address.

There may be a Nethouseprices error, which we will also look into on your behalf if you provide us with the full postal address.

When is the sold house price data updated?

Our house price information is updated once a month for each of the Registers we cover. This is carried out as soon as the data is released to us by the Land Registry.

Due to the volume of sales transactions, there is a delay in receiving the data. House sales registered in a month will usually be available on Nethouseprices the last week of the following month. For example all sales registered in July will be available in the last week of August.

Open Market Value

An opinion of the best price at which the sale of an interest in property would have been a reasonable period (the open market value of an asset is the price it might reasonably fetch if it was sold on the open market at the time of the transfer of that asset).

Is the house price information accurate?

Yes the house prices and transactions displayed on Nethouseprices are an accurate representation of the information we have been given by the government agencies who are our licensors.

If you believe that the information is not accurate, please directly contact the Land Registry so that their records can be amended. All licensees including Nethouseprices will then receive the update in the next months data.

Sometimes the information may be wrong because of human error in the data entry process, there may be occasions when we accidently receive records of sales which are not normally part of our licence agreement, for example properties which have not sold under Open Market Value (Council property for example).

Can I have my house price information removed?

We don't offer this service. We don't do it for friends, government employees, Nethouseprices staff or anyone else. The information has been a matter of public record for a long time. We have just made accessing some of the information easier.

While we could remove individual results they would still exist on the original public records.

So you would gain very little (because your house price information would still be public knowledge) and our information would be incomplete.

If you believe that there is a valid reason why your details should not be part of the Land Register you will need to speak directly with the executive agency responsible. They are the copyright holders and licensors.

If the government agency agree to remove the details of your sale, they will contact us and the details will be removed thereafter.

What are Email Updates?

Once you have registered on the site - you can choose up to 10 postcodes and a radius for each. We update our sold prices on a monthly basis and if there are any in your area(s) we'll let you know about it via email.

Activating / Log-in / Sign-in issues

Where's my activation email?

Registration emails are sent in approximately 6 minutes (they are usually despatched instantly). We can't guarantee that it will always work perfectly but it is continuously monitored.

There are two main reasons your registration email might not reach you. Either it is mistakenly identified as spam or the mailbox is not available.

To avoid having the mail sent to the "junk" folder as spam, please add nethouseprices.com to the list of approved senders. This also applies to spam blocking services like "nospam" which require the sender of the email to verify that they are human. Our registration process is automatic not human and cannot complete these verification procedures.

The mailbox being unavailable can be caused by a number of factors - wrong email address entered, you have used up your quota of space and need to delete mails before our email can be received, or a problem with the mail server or name look up at your server.

To make sure you receive your registration email and activate your account to use our service, please ensure that you enter your correct email address, that the mailbox for it is available and that you have entered nethouseprices.com as an approved sender in any spam blocking service you may use.

How do I activate my account?

We will send you a registration email which contains an activation link. Your activation email will usually arrive almost instantly. If it hasn't arrived within an hour something has gone wrong. Please notify us if this is the case.

Once you have clicked on that link your account is active and you may log in to use our service.

Problems activating your account/signing in?

There is no need to use the activation link if the account has already been activated, either through your email link or by our help staff.Solution Please log-in.

The link in your activation email has broken across two or more lines and when you look in your browser's address bar you will see that what is shown is not the full link. Solution Cut and paste the complete link in your browser address bar.

You have not activated your account within several days of it being sent and we have deleted the account.Solution Please re-register.

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